But one disadvantage of switching from x86 and x86-64 to ARM and AArch64 is inability to run the occasional Windows application in Wine. My work flow includes a few Windows applications distributed as free software, such as FCEUX debugging version, FamiTracker, and Modplug Tracker. All are usable in Wine, even on a dinky little Atom CPU. If you go ARM, you're on your own recompiling them for linking with Winelib.
The Litebook ships with the Elementary OS flavor of Linux, though you can install an alternate that uses the Linux kernel 4.8.
The idea is that this laptop is warranted to run Linux and X.Org X11, as opposed to some other Windows-focused laptop models that end up suffering serious problems due to missing or broken drivers. So you'd remain within spec if you installed something more mainstream, such as Xubuntu.
Personally, I find the difference so stark that the lack of portability is a price I'm willing to pay.
A Mac with a Windows license is the only kind of computer that can (legally) run all current applications for popular desktop operating systems, particularly proprietary applications that are Mac-exclusive or Windows-exclusive. Yet if we were to recommend switching to a Mac as the universal workaround to the lack of portability of desktop computer applications, this would give Apple a monopoly on the desktop computer market. Can I put you on record as believing that granting Apple such a monopoly "is a price I'm willing to pay"? If not, what did I misunderstand?
If you have access to only the binary, and only the publisher has access to the C source code, how feasible is it to recompile the binary from x86, x86-64, ARM, or AArch64 object code to the object code of your preferred instruction set?
If they want less users then it's their decision to stick with Solaris.
And this is why web application publishers stick with JavaScript or languages that transpile thereto instead of offering a web browser that supports installable third-party languages: JavaScript or languages that transpile thereto reach the most users.
the new computer will be cheaper than whatever would be needed to run the equivalent code in Javascript.
Not necessarily. In many such cases, "whatever would be needed to run the equivalent code in Javascript" is the computer you already own and therefore $0.
I don't need to play Quake 5 written in JavaScript. That's what C's for.
Until you find that a program written in C was compiled for an instruction set and operating system other than that of your computer.
Recompile?
Good luck recompiling if all you received from the application's publisher was a binary compiled from source code that the application's publisher considers a trade secret. I figured that would be obvious because Quake is the title of a video game series. Or are you referring to Id Software's historic process of distributing its older engines as free software years later after engine licenses dry up?
The biggest problem to the Unix way of Web, Is windows doesn't have python or perl or any languages installed.
Would you prefer a web application that works only in web browsers made for, say, the Solaris operating system because the language in which its client-side component is written is available only for Solaris? Solaris is a UNIX operating system.
Also patent trolls is a bad reason to not do something the superior way.
What should people do instead? Pay off every troll that makes a claim?
Would you prefer that applications that actually need those features instead be native applications that are specific to an operating system other than the one you use?
Yes
How many PCs do you use regularly? Is any of them a Mac with a retail Windows license installed into Boot Camp, Parallels, or VirtualBox
There are a million different solutions to software portability.
And the publisher of a proprietary native application can prove unable or unwilling to use any of said "million different solutions to software portability." For example, the application's publisher may have only a Mac to test on, not a Windows PC, a GNU/Linux PC, an iPad, or an Android tablet. Or the the application's publisher may wish to promote the sale of more Mac computers, believing that his or her application is worth the $650 that it would cost to buy a license for the application, a Mac mini on which to run it, and a KVM switch to switch back and forth between the application on the Mac and whatever other applications the user is already using on the user's other (non-Mac) computer. Case in point: Not all games on Steam are ported to macOS and Linux.
Jesus. Are you being deliberately stupid, or are you really stupid?
I promise to stop appearing stupid once I see specific citations for the points you are making.
Until then, I understand Trusted Platform Module to be an attestation device so that later parts of the boot process, including particular applications, can trust the earlier parts. If you don't care about it, you can just not read from it and refuse to use applications whose use is conditioned on reading from it. I further understand Secure Boot to be the other way around, so that earlier parts of the boot process can trust the later parts. On the vast majority of current home PC hardware, including all x86 and x86-64 PCs certified to run Windows 8.1 or older, a PC's owner can disable it or change its keys.
I don't understand why the Web browser can't use whatever scripting languages I have installed. If I don't have installed the website tells me to install.
And when a particular language is available only for one proprietary web browser on one proprietary operating system, you're back to "Best viewed with Internet Explorer". Furthermore, the browser would need to heavily sandbox third-party installable languages in order to protect users from the sort of trojans that were common in the "codec pack" era, and sandboxing is patented.
I don't need to play Quake 5 written in JavaScript. That's what C's for.
Until you find that a program written in C was compiled for an instruction set and operating system other than that of your computer. Then what do you do?
Every I/O blocks, and when the program hits an I/O, the interpreter switches to another thread. Where have I heard that one before? Oh yeah: Python threading and the GIL.
Would you prefer that applications that actually need those features instead be native applications that are specific to an operating system other than the one you use?
Tabs should be completely eliminated. They are a obsolete vestige left over from mechanical teletypes.
"Completely" is a strong word. I can understand using spaces for indentation, but if you "completely" eliminate tabs, you break compatibility with POSIX Make. Furthermore, if you "completely" eliminate tabs, then what format for delimited flat files? In my experience, tab-separated values format is more efficient than comma-separated values format because a value is far more likely to need escaping because it contains a comma than because it contains a tab.
Google derives income by connecting the publishers of documents on the web with sponsors through services such as AdSense/AdWords and DoubleClick. When people find documents through Google Search, use other Google properties, or view a participating publisher's documents, Google gets a cut of the ad revenue. The more web browsing, the more money for Google. So a better browser is likely to keep people on the web longer.
Internet Explorer stayed a piece of shit for far too long. Then Microsoft actually got a clue and made IE 9 then IE 10. But by then, Chrome had already become commonplace in certain circles.
It seems like there is really nothing special about a Wii that makes it a good target for homebrew development.
I asked a similar question. Let me summarize the reply I got and other articles I've written about the topic (123). In no particular order:
1. Wii had SDTV out and PC didn't, which was important in the mid-2000s when the largest monitor in a home was likely to be standard definition. 2. Wii is smaller and quieter than a typical tower PC. 3. Wii plus the Super Smash Bros. Brawl disc and SD card to launch Smash Stack was cheaper than a typical PC. 4. The pointing device bundled with a Wii could be used from a couch; the one that came with a desktop PC required a desk. 5. Lower latency audio API by default. 6. Many don't want to have to lug the family PC back and forth between the computer desk and the living room, as if you were going to a LAN party every day, or to tie it up while a game is being played. 7. Predictability of hardware capability eases evaluation of a program's system requirements.
In other words, no-one's told you it's happening. So it's not.
If you claim that "it's happening", I'd like to see specific evidence.
Maybe you should pay attention to what's actually going on with Trusted Computing. the TCG etc.
All that came out of the "Trusted Computing Group" is a device that essentially checksums the boot process. There's also an anti-bootkit measure in UEFI called Secure Boot, but I don't see how that's related to the TCG. If you have evidence of Restricted Boot (FSF's name for an implementation of Secure Boot that the device's owner cannot disable or customize with user-provided keys) on mass-market desktop or laptop computers that aren't specifically advertised as being locked down to one brand of operating system, I'd like to see a link to such evidence.
Future Raspberry PIs will be quietly running trustzone code without you even knowing it.
If this TrustZone code were to interfere with use of the device to teach students to code, it would defeat the purpose of the device. Why would ARM or the SoC vendor endanger its goodwill by knowingly defeating a well-known, widely used device's intended purpose?
I wonder why people even went through the hassle of running homebrew on a Wii console instead of just using a TV as a PC monitor. True, many during the Wii's commercial era (2006 to 2012) had an SDTV, but back then, I used a $40 scan converter like one of these to turn a PC's VGA out into composite or S-Video.
Since publisher's already DID do that (most publishers have a specific set of terms available covering streaming for all their games) and most decided to grant permission to do it... how is that still a problem?
Because the grants aren't permanent; the publisher can revoke them at any time for any reason. In addition, the fact that you wrote "most decided" rather than "all decided" is telling.
publishers do describe what you can stream for financial gain and it's usually fairly permissive
Slashdot Mirror
Last I heard of Pinebook on Slashdot was a comment by vux984 mentioning it in passing.
But one disadvantage of switching from x86 and x86-64 to ARM and AArch64 is inability to run the occasional Windows application in Wine. My work flow includes a few Windows applications distributed as free software, such as FCEUX debugging version, FamiTracker, and Modplug Tracker. All are usable in Wine, even on a dinky little Atom CPU. If you go ARM, you're on your own recompiling them for linking with Winelib.
From the featured article:
The idea is that this laptop is warranted to run Linux and X.Org X11, as opposed to some other Windows-focused laptop models that end up suffering serious problems due to missing or broken drivers. So you'd remain within spec if you installed something more mainstream, such as Xubuntu.
Personally, I find the difference so stark that the lack of portability is a price I'm willing to pay.
A Mac with a Windows license is the only kind of computer that can (legally) run all current applications for popular desktop operating systems, particularly proprietary applications that are Mac-exclusive or Windows-exclusive. Yet if we were to recommend switching to a Mac as the universal workaround to the lack of portability of desktop computer applications, this would give Apple a monopoly on the desktop computer market. Can I put you on record as believing that granting Apple such a monopoly "is a price I'm willing to pay"? If not, what did I misunderstand?
Recompile it with a new instruction set target.
If you have access to only the binary, and only the publisher has access to the C source code, how feasible is it to recompile the binary from x86, x86-64, ARM, or AArch64 object code to the object code of your preferred instruction set?
If they want less users then it's their decision to stick with Solaris.
And this is why web application publishers stick with JavaScript or languages that transpile thereto instead of offering a web browser that supports installable third-party languages: JavaScript or languages that transpile thereto reach the most users.
the new computer will be cheaper than whatever would be needed to run the equivalent code in Javascript.
Not necessarily. In many such cases, "whatever would be needed to run the equivalent code in Javascript" is the computer you already own and therefore $0.
I imagine that most people cannot afford to buy a new computer for each application that someone wants to run.
I don't need to play Quake 5 written in JavaScript. That's what C's for.
Until you find that a program written in C was compiled for an instruction set and operating system other than that of your computer.
Recompile?
Good luck recompiling if all you received from the application's publisher was a binary compiled from source code that the application's publisher considers a trade secret. I figured that would be obvious because Quake is the title of a video game series. Or are you referring to Id Software's historic process of distributing its older engines as free software years later after engine licenses dry up?
The biggest problem to the Unix way of Web, Is windows doesn't have python or perl or any languages installed.
Would you prefer a web application that works only in web browsers made for, say, the Solaris operating system because the language in which its client-side component is written is available only for Solaris? Solaris is a UNIX operating system.
Also patent trolls is a bad reason to not do something the superior way.
What should people do instead? Pay off every troll that makes a claim?
Would you prefer that applications that actually need those features instead be native applications that are specific to an operating system other than the one you use?
Yes
How many PCs do you use regularly? Is any of them a Mac with a retail Windows license installed into Boot Camp, Parallels, or VirtualBox
There are a million different solutions to software portability.
And the publisher of a proprietary native application can prove unable or unwilling to use any of said "million different solutions to software portability." For example, the application's publisher may have only a Mac to test on, not a Windows PC, a GNU/Linux PC, an iPad, or an Android tablet. Or the the application's publisher may wish to promote the sale of more Mac computers, believing that his or her application is worth the $650 that it would cost to buy a license for the application, a Mac mini on which to run it, and a KVM switch to switch back and forth between the application on the Mac and whatever other applications the user is already using on the user's other (non-Mac) computer. Case in point: Not all games on Steam are ported to macOS and Linux.
Jesus. Are you being deliberately stupid, or are you really stupid?
I promise to stop appearing stupid once I see specific citations for the points you are making.
Until then, I understand Trusted Platform Module to be an attestation device so that later parts of the boot process, including particular applications, can trust the earlier parts. If you don't care about it, you can just not read from it and refuse to use applications whose use is conditioned on reading from it. I further understand Secure Boot to be the other way around, so that earlier parts of the boot process can trust the later parts. On the vast majority of current home PC hardware, including all x86 and x86-64 PCs certified to run Windows 8.1 or older, a PC's owner can disable it or change its keys.
I don't understand why the Web browser can't use whatever scripting languages I have installed. If I don't have installed the website tells me to install.
And when a particular language is available only for one proprietary web browser on one proprietary operating system, you're back to "Best viewed with Internet Explorer". Furthermore, the browser would need to heavily sandbox third-party installable languages in order to protect users from the sort of trojans that were common in the "codec pack" era, and sandboxing is patented.
I don't need to play Quake 5 written in JavaScript. That's what C's for.
Until you find that a program written in C was compiled for an instruction set and operating system other than that of your computer. Then what do you do?
Every I/O blocks, and when the program hits an I/O, the interpreter switches to another thread. Where have I heard that one before? Oh yeah: Python threading and the GIL.
Would you prefer that applications that actually need those features instead be native applications that are specific to an operating system other than the one you use?
Tabs should be completely eliminated. They are a obsolete vestige left over from mechanical teletypes.
"Completely" is a strong word. I can understand using spaces for indentation, but if you "completely" eliminate tabs, you break compatibility with POSIX Make. Furthermore, if you "completely" eliminate tabs, then what format for delimited flat files? In my experience, tab-separated values format is more efficient than comma-separated values format because a value is far more likely to need escaping because it contains a comma than because it contains a tab.
Google derives income by connecting the publishers of documents on the web with sponsors through services such as AdSense/AdWords and DoubleClick. When people find documents through Google Search, use other Google properties, or view a participating publisher's documents, Google gets a cut of the ad revenue. The more web browsing, the more money for Google. So a better browser is likely to keep people on the web longer.
Internet Explorer stayed a piece of shit for far too long. Then Microsoft actually got a clue and made IE 9 then IE 10. But by then, Chrome had already become commonplace in certain circles.
It seems like there is really nothing special about a Wii that makes it a good target for homebrew development.
I asked a similar question. Let me summarize the reply I got and other articles I've written about the topic (1 2 3). In no particular order:
1. Wii had SDTV out and PC didn't, which was important in the mid-2000s when the largest monitor in a home was likely to be standard definition.
2. Wii is smaller and quieter than a typical tower PC.
3. Wii plus the Super Smash Bros. Brawl disc and SD card to launch Smash Stack was cheaper than a typical PC.
4. The pointing device bundled with a Wii could be used from a couch; the one that came with a desktop PC required a desk.
5. Lower latency audio API by default.
6. Many don't want to have to lug the family PC back and forth between the computer desk and the living room, as if you were going to a LAN party every day, or to tie it up while a game is being played.
7. Predictability of hardware capability eases evaluation of a program's system requirements.
News media. That's what I was thinking of.
Thank you. That clears things up.
Although I have said this.
From the linked comment to an archived story:
3b: If user indicates no, [the user does not wish to view the message from the sponsor,] just play the video.
Instead, YouTube would likely show a payment form to begin a subscription to YouTube Red, with action buttons "Pay" and "Play Ad Instead".
In other words, no-one's told you it's happening. So it's not.
If you claim that "it's happening", I'd like to see specific evidence.
Maybe you should pay attention to what's actually going on with Trusted Computing. the TCG etc.
All that came out of the "Trusted Computing Group" is a device that essentially checksums the boot process. There's also an anti-bootkit measure in UEFI called Secure Boot, but I don't see how that's related to the TCG. If you have evidence of Restricted Boot (FSF's name for an implementation of Secure Boot that the device's owner cannot disable or customize with user-provided keys) on mass-market desktop or laptop computers that aren't specifically advertised as being locked down to one brand of operating system, I'd like to see a link to such evidence.
Future Raspberry PIs will be quietly running trustzone code without you even knowing it.
If this TrustZone code were to interfere with use of the device to teach students to code, it would defeat the purpose of the device. Why would ARM or the SoC vendor endanger its goodwill by knowingly defeating a well-known, widely used device's intended purpose?
Laptops are also relatively "small and quiet".
I wonder why people even went through the hassle of running homebrew on a Wii console instead of just using a TV as a PC monitor. True, many during the Wii's commercial era (2006 to 2012) had an SDTV, but back then, I used a $40 scan converter like one of these to turn a PC's VGA out into composite or S-Video.
Show me a game that isn't bottlenecked by the GPU.
Any Super FX or SA-1 game running in higan.
Since publisher's already DID do that (most publishers have a specific set of terms available covering streaming for all their games) and most decided to grant permission to do it... how is that still a problem?
Because the grants aren't permanent; the publisher can revoke them at any time for any reason. In addition, the fact that you wrote "most decided" rather than "all decided" is telling.
publishers do describe what you can stream for financial gain and it's usually fairly permissive
Until they change the description without notice.